Day 230 After leaving the Banka Banka rest stop the next morning, it was more driving. Blowing through more teeny towns like Elliot and Daly Waters. We stopped for lunch in the latter at the only pub in town. Daly Waters also had a caravan park and a gas station on the other side of the dusty red road. A permanently red stop light stood pointlessly in front of the pub. After the walk through the ten by ten souvenir shop the bar was on the left. Over a section of the bar hung hundreds of bras, yes bras. Across from the bar on the wall were hundreds of police and paramedic patches from around the globe, even had an RCMP one. There were also sections of hats, flags, underwear and paper money also from around the world. The outside was just as quirky with a couple support poles full of flip-flops and a beam full of cowboy hats. We had lunch and a pricey beer which was $7 for a schooner. Schooners here are not like at home, they are smaller than a pint. Surprisingly the bar also had a small pool which we took advantage of in the searing desert heat.
Our next stop was Mataranka where we originally just planned to fuel up, but found a luke warm hot spring to swim in. Whilst there we talked to some locals who recommended a camp nearby. We went there to stay the night and stayed the next night also.
The camp was in Elsey National Park right along the banks of the Roper River. Our day was a lot of sitting, laying around, swimming in the river and chilling under the sprinklers when they were on for about an hour. We chatted with the only other people there, a couple from Melbourne who were on the tail end of a two year Western Australia road trip.